This blog on Texas education contains posts on accountability, testing, college readiness, dropouts, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues with additional focus at the national level.

Tx Trib Schools Explorer

Monday, November 16, 2009

NEW YORK, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Ford Foundation todayannounced a new $100 million initiative to transform secondary education inurban schools across the country, saying it wants to help build the conditionsand resources required to provide a great education to public school students.The seven-year, seven-city initiative will fund projects that address fourbasic elements of school infrastructure that have a decisive impact on thequality of education offered to the nation's most vulnerable studentpopulations: sufficient and equitable school financing, quality teaching,additional and more useful learning time, and meaningful accountability.

Driven by widening gaps in educational opportunities as well as persistentgaps in achievement, the Ford initiative will invest in reforms and reformerswhose visions of a just and fair public schooling system can galvanize all theplayers--parents, students, teachers, and community leaders, as well asscholars and policy experts.

"Improving our schools, and giving the most vulnerable young people realeducational opportunities, benefits all of us," said Ford Foundation PresidentLuis Ubinas. "With this initiative we want to shake up the conversationssurrounding school reform and help spur some truly imaginative thinking andpartnerships."

Dr. Jeannie Oakes, director of the Educational Opportunity and Scholarshipunit at Ford, said the foundation does not presume to have the answers, butbelieves that effective solutions are far more likely when all thestakeholders come together rather than competing to push narrow specialinterests.

"The four areas of reform on which Oakes and her team are focusing are widelyrecognized as having the potential to make a significant difference in theeducation of all students, particularly those who are the least well served bythe current school system," noted Alison Bernstein, vice president of Ford'sEducation, Creativity and Free Expression program.

-- Teaching quality: In addition to having a well-prepared teacher, high-quality instruction is the product of teachers and other school staff working together to create a robust learning environment. Ford said it would support efforts that approach instruction and learning as a collaborative process and a shared responsibility--where a culture of excellence is cultivated and best practices are exchanged across the school. -- More learning time: There is broad agreement that extending the school day and year are key to improving academic outcomes for students. How that time is filled is essential. Ford will promote initiatives that show how poorer school districts can offer high-quality learning opportunities over a lengthened day and year. -- Stronger accountability: The foundation argues that standardized tests are a blunt and inadequate tool by which to gauge student learning and school effectiveness, focusing accountability on only a small slice of what parents and the public expects. The initiative will support reformers advancing more meaningful methods of assessment and accountability.

-- Robust school funding: Many state finance systems fail to allocate enough resources to provide quality schooling for all students. Others perpetuate inequality by relying on property taxes to fund school districts, leaving poorer communities without adequate school resources. Ford's initiative will advance policies that address these vexing issues.

"The importance of each of these areas to the future success of our youngpeople can't be underestimated," said Mr. Ubinas. "We can't expect youngpeople from disadvantaged communities to be ready for 21st century lifewithout giving them significantly more hours and days at school to benefitfrom innovative teaching and learning."

"Not only are these four areas essential, we must address them in ways thatcut through the atmosphere of recrimination and dysfunction that oftencharacterizes urban school reform efforts," said Jeannie Oakes. "Only thenwill we build a real movement for change that enables every public school inthis country, and particularly those in the poorest districts, to offer anoutstanding education to every student."

Oakes said the foundation's initiative would focus on New York City, Newark,Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Denver. The foundation isworking with a wide range of local partners in these cities--parents,teachers, students, community organizations, and local funders--all of whomare working hard to bring about sustainable change in their public schools.

Early Grants from the Initiative

-- The American Institutes for Research in Behavioral Sciences to develop new finance models to ensure that funds are allocated and dispensed in fair and equitable ways that reflect the individual needs of school districts and their students. -- The Urban Residency United to establish program standards for teacher residencies and to develop a new national teacher education model for cohorts of teachers in their first year of teaching. -- Generation Schools to refine and test their extended day model to allow for greater learning opportunities and encourage teacher collaboration. -- Stanford University to write and distribute a series of papers highlighting state-of-the-art assessments that measure a student's critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving across a wide array of subject areas. -- To the new AFT Innovation Fund, a foundation-funded but union-led initiative to make grants to AFT affiliates nationwide for innovative efforts established jointly by teachers, administrators, and parents.

-- Public Interest Projects to support Communities for Public Education Reform, a large-scale public engagement collaborative that seeks to build grassroots support for improvements in teacher quality, fair and adequate finance, and stronger accountability.